Movie: Werner Herzog's Nosferatu
Feb. 2nd, 2006 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterOne of my shames is that I've yet to see Murnau's original Nosferatu. I've got a vague idea of catching it at the artsy cinema, where they sometimes show silent movies with live piano music. For the meantime, the local Cosmo equivalent came packaged with a DVD of Herzog's remake a few months ago, and since my exam didn't happen (argh), I watched it today.
It's such a quiet, unearthly movie. The light and shadow play is very much inspired by Murnau. The soundtrack compliments the visuals beautifully - the scene where the plague-stricken people dance as a mournful hymn plays out is unearthly. The sheer contrast - Lucy (in this version, Jonathan's wife) looks like a vampire, pale and black-clad, and yet it's the people she passes, dancing and joyful, who are the ones condemned to death.
Kinski's Dracula is a mite too crazy at times, but then he catches the rhythm and is appropriately spellbinding, quite an accomplishment in that makeup. I didn't much care for Bruno Ganz as Harker, except at the end, but I was surprised at how much I liked Isabelle Adjani's performance. I was afraid her Lucy would turn out to be a will-less victim, and I couldn't have been more wrong.
Come to think of it, this is a surprisingly feminist movie.
Also, a guy looking like that has absolutely no business being hot, but somehow his scene with Lucy was scorching. Something about their hands...
(Note: the version I saw was the German-language one. The English one consists of entirely different "speaking" takes.)
It's such a quiet, unearthly movie. The light and shadow play is very much inspired by Murnau. The soundtrack compliments the visuals beautifully - the scene where the plague-stricken people dance as a mournful hymn plays out is unearthly. The sheer contrast - Lucy (in this version, Jonathan's wife) looks like a vampire, pale and black-clad, and yet it's the people she passes, dancing and joyful, who are the ones condemned to death.
Kinski's Dracula is a mite too crazy at times, but then he catches the rhythm and is appropriately spellbinding, quite an accomplishment in that makeup. I didn't much care for Bruno Ganz as Harker, except at the end, but I was surprised at how much I liked Isabelle Adjani's performance. I was afraid her Lucy would turn out to be a will-less victim, and I couldn't have been more wrong.
Come to think of it, this is a surprisingly feminist movie.
Also, a guy looking like that has absolutely no business being hot, but somehow his scene with Lucy was scorching. Something about their hands...
(Note: the version I saw was the German-language one. The English one consists of entirely different "speaking" takes.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:24 am (UTC)some dubs should be called Dumbs.
i always watch it in the original language, with french i don't need the subtitles and if they speak slowly in german i can manage but they don't speak slowly they go all in a rush and i work on a bit of a delay so i get all tangled up.
but for the most part the british won't watch a film if it's subtitled, which is a shame because they usually lose half the dialogue.
there is a version of das boot somewhere where someone took the mine sequence and replaced it with someone listening to a man u football match.
everything i needed to know about dubs i learnt in that moment.
catch the murnau one if you can, it's deliciously creepy.
and the bbc made a movie about it called Shadow of the Vampire which i love which has Willem Defoe playing Max Shreck but only makes sense if you've seen the original.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:47 am (UTC)